A legislative panel Tuesday signed off on Gov. Asa Hutchinson's request to transfer $9.6 million to government programs, including $4.4 million for prisons and $3 million to support county extension offices.
The Legislative Council's Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Subcommittee's approval clears the way for the state Department of Finance and Administration to distribute the rainy-day funds from the General Improvement Fund, said the subcommittee co-chairman, Sen. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia.
Maloch told lawmakers most of these items "were discussed and really sort of planned during the budget process during the regular [session], and [lawmakers] just knew that the governor would take care of those items with rainy day [funds]."
Hutchinson requested $4.4 million for the state Department of Correction for personnel services and operating expenses tied to opening 356 beds at the department's Ester Unit in Pine Bluff. He also got:
• $3 million for UA's Agriculture Division.
• $1.5 million for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission's Innovate Arkansas program.
• $422,032 for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
• $330,000 for the Insurance Department.
But state Sen. Eddie Joe Williams, R-Cabot, said one of the issues when the Arkansas Legislature discussed whether to build a prison "was the inability to hire personnel in that area," adding he wants to know how many employees the department plans to hire at the Ester unit.
Mike Carraway, assistant department for the department, said the department is hiring about 45 people to operate 184 beds at the Ester unit. The facility has had 92 inmates; today, an additional 92 are scheduled to arrive.
The number of new beds at the unit will climb to the 356 on Jan. 1 and there will be about 60 other officers hired at the time, he said.
The department previously had looked at expansion of maximum-security prisons and "down in the Delta and Dermott, both of those areas the hiring pools had pretty much been depleted," Carraway said.
Carraway said the $4.4 million requested by the governor is part of the expansion costs at the medium-security Ester unit. The department has already received authorization to spend an additional $1.9 million on the project.
Williams said the department is going to hire more employees with one-time funds, "so I don't think there isn't any question we are going to be expanding the budget considerably for this facility or the Correction Department as a whole."
Williams said he is concerned about how Arkansas will pay for additional prison space if "our budget continues to grow and if we don't have a source [of money] to continue to increase it."
"We are at a crisis. There is no question about it. I think we are going to exacerbate that crisis by continuing to expand without a good revenue source, so I hope you have thought through that," he said.
During this year's regular session, the Legislature approved a budget increasing the Department of Correction's allocation by $14.3 million to $336.6 million, and increasing the Department of Community Correction's budget by $1.7 million to $78.6 million in the fiscal year that started July 1. County jail reimbursements for housing state prisoners are set to increase from $16.4 million to $27.8 million in this fiscal year, too.
Carraway said the department already is paying to house up to 288 inmates in Texas, but noted that the agreement expires at the end of December.
In March, the Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Subcommittee signed off on Hutchinson's request to use $2.65 million in state rainy-day funds to lease bed space for state inmates in Bowie County in Texas. It approved the transfer of these funds a month after the state Board of Corrections approved a contract with the Bowie County jail to house the inmates for $36 per day, plus a $2.42 per-day medical coverage stipend.
The cost is more than the $30 per day the state pays to Arkansas jails to house the inmates, but less than the estimated $60 cost for each inmate in state prisons.
Williams said Tuesday that the department would be better off holding inmates at the Bowie County jail than shipping them back to Arkansas.
After Tuesday's meeting, department spokesman Cathy Frye said it would cost $2,042,496 to extend the contract with Bowie County, through June 30, 2016, and the department plans to request funding to do that.
The Department of Correction had 2,418 male inmates and 217 female inmates in county jails as of Tuesday. The number of inmates in prison units is 15,774, and department's at 106.7 percent capacity, which totals 14,777, she said.
The governor's plan to open more beds also includes expanding the Ester unit by 200 beds for $7.4 million, said Hutchinson spokesman Emily Shaal.
In addition, 54 work-release beds for women have been filed at a renovated site in Pine Bluff. The state is authorized to fund 500 re-entry beds and its request for qualifications for these facilities have been posted online, she said.
Hutchinson said in letters to lawmakers that the $3 million for the Agriculture Division would be used for personnel and operating expenses, and the $1.5 million for the Arkansas Development Commission would be used for hiring and operating expenses for the Innovate Arkansas program.
In December in advance of this year's session, House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, said boosting state funding for the Agriculture Division is one of his top priorities.
The division had been unsuccessful in getting a $3.5 million increase in its $62.8 million general budget in fiscal 2016.
Hutchinson said in a written statement that "this [request for $3 million in rainy-day funds] is certainly supportive of the speaker."
Gillam said division officials did a good job explaining why more money is needed and the governor "saw the need as well."
"We'll re-evaluate in the fiscal session to see what can be done going forward from there," he said.
Division spokesman Mark Scott said the $3 million "would ensure that each of our 75 county offices have at minimum two county extension agents.
"We currently have 10 counties that only have one. This money would allow us to solidify our county operations in all 75 counties for the next two fiscal years."
The one-time funds also will help offset increased health insurance costs, and continue to fund the research project at Big Creek in Newton County -- as requested by the governor's office, along with funding the Discovery Farm program -- Scott said.
"As a division of the University of Arkansas System that does not have students, we cannot rely on student tuition and fees to maintain staffing levels," Scott noted.
The Innovate Arkansas program has been in existence since 2008, said Economic Development Commission spokesman Scott Hardin. The program is aimed at encouraging technology-based innovations and creating jobs in Arkansas.
Hutchinson said in letters to lawmakers that the $422,083 in rainy-day funds for UAPB will provide state matching funds for the federal National Institute of Food and Agriculture's 1890 Land-Grant Institutions program and the $330,000 for the Insurance Department is intended to help cover its regulatory contract obligations to administer plans for the health insurance exchange.
The state will have a balance of $52.7 million in rainy-day funds after the distributions for these agencies, said senior analyst Wendy Cartwright of the Bureau of Legislative Research.
Metro on 07/15/2015